It’s the body who has moved

the direction of light to wave

a chemistry of fog lingers

lost among clouds

the way a pulse echoes

a pulse echoes 

a pulse echoes onto the page

⟡

I find:

a place to react

a primary desire

a name that melts away

⟡

I — what’s left?

⟡

Vague terrain on which waves of mist and eyes collect

as if object did not but was

⟡

Images

long for form, an approach

away, all notions slip

⟡

Left for I, blood pools 

betrayed by light

carved into night’s eaves

⟡

Negatives

wake between the distance

image and dream

⟡

Promised — the only participle 

scattered on the floor

⟡

In the dark, red light

kept but not keeping — I know you

⟡

Can you discern thought’s shadow sinking into the night?

⟡

The moon — how it waves 

or was said to have waved

measuring the magnitude of the seas

coursing through our veins

⟡ 

Everywhere inside turns out 

when foam unbreaks 

drifting away from:

the eternal thing that makes

that does not unless it were

light

⟡

To go aways 

off shore, yet always within your reach

⟡

To go to bed with the stars

each beat, each rain

of photons

you choose one and enter

to catch a feeling

submerged

⟡

Say it now together:

I, You, Here

Me, You, And

Mine, Yours, Now

⟡

A legacy of two seconds

yet so full

and marked for life

⟡

⟡

It’s the rain that finds and cracks

fissures the exhaust of hand for doing

more than hand should ever do

⟡

Collecting every drop on the page

amending each molecule

making holes

scratching the surface

⟡

So far into an abyss, yet real force lasts 

as atom memory

⟡

You’ve given me a window into sky, yet still I return to verse

⟡

⟡

In the beginning: clouds of dust

and gravity transformed 

flashes of light

illuminated dark clouds

at the edge of the storm

we couldn’t see a thing

⟡

In its eye

what lies there, save for rods and cones and forgotten things?

⟡

Of course, image is an urge

preceding dust

evading as leaks, a capture

an echo, you recall the face pressed in pulp

⟡

Gelatin skeletons and silver remains

gaseous pools and bloody mud

ooze and drift

⟡

With effort exposed as waves

buried into the page beneath an early urge to remain

if not only to leave a trace

⟡ 

What do you see when waking?

⟡

River currents fading

memory floating into twilight

the one thing we made together

and called ours

⟡

Light splashes and leaves its mark

⟡

Memory lingers — remembering disrupts

⟡

Beauty for sight, but not to see

⟡

⟡

Present cracks into exalted strokes

as for the heavy dawn light, I accept anything

shatters under pressure:

as all matter does and did and will do

⟡

Heat etches stars into the sky as dust

strikes stone for wind

⟡

We believe in

generative entropy and ribbons of shadow

strung high 

⟡

For us to believe everything 

falls apart 

is to say 

⟡

Look how lovely the days are as they lay smoldered

dead and dying!

⟡

Day is hot to touch

feverish day, the sinking stars

smell of chemistry wafts

like invisible electric current

⟡

Who could carve such a hole

to sink into and float away

without a necessary edge?

⟡

When did I leave the place at which you had already arrived?

⟡

Rays of light beam through smoke

dust billows

come to harvest our air

⟡

Breath heavy, respiration hot 

carving out a life high 

between the cracks

⟡

⟡

Unity of opposites:

the subtle flesh of encounter

fertile in the foggy water

  describes the sun as you accept its shadow

⟡

We enter a vortex of ashes

light leaks into 

no colour spills out

only evading — a momentary memory

⟡

To accept the shadow, you defy reason

excepting divine 

dis – associations

re – figuring expectations

⟡

I look down to describe the Moon 

⟡

You use a mirror to pull me in

to fissure my own image 

⟡

The sun’s shadow I see alone 

⟡

No image ever really was

⟡ 

Were those even stars in our sky?

⟡

There, a message

cast above the clouds

until a trace emerged

the mark was left

⟡

There, a seed of coalition —

egg and child of the egg

spirit and matter of the spirit

 — born to reflect, never withholding

⟡

⟡

Together we name the shadow

— solaris lunaris infantis unum — 

and we become nothing without it

⟡

An egg drops from the sky

you find it cracked

the child is only a consequence

matter doubles

this remains

⟡

You go out and propose to the melting, molten terrain, 

Here

is the one way to desire!

⟡

To the knot inside, I attend

and offer my unfettered farewell

⟡

To desire, we go quickly and without word

what a kindness to meet the shadow and melt away

⟡

 Fractures indicate a single body

— corpus rebis —

pierced but never penetrated

⟡

Let’s feign to speak each other

syllables on copper tongues

reference the constraint —

child and its consequence

— and fall into another orbit

a womb with sky view and word

tied to a single body 

emerging from the ground

⟡ 

⟡

The fluid

broken

seeming of

worlds at scale 

at each level bonds join and fall

each movement with which I can speak a name

save my breath for distance

⟡

Does it matter if I say this or refuse?

⟡

 Under the weight of the sky

we’re pulled by the same force — so we loosen

so we try

⟡

There is no 

re – lenting

re – telling fails under pressure

dis – solves each part 

re – mains

⟡

⟡

Smoke

shrouds

islands float

off course 

⟡

We learn how to see

⟡

Our interest is depth

⟡

Factors of illusion and creation deceive

⟡

Our deception is wide

⟡

Any distance goes

as scenes smolder 

as a form of waiting:

pain 

ecstasy 

texture of melting noise

burst of light

on black cloud

⟡

Our interest is depth

so we dive

in the distance between surface

and core

we’re pulled back

pulled into

pulled over

pulled down

pulled under

dreaming the ways 

slipping into and out

the only pronoun for us

we are overcome

unfounded

unsettled

 undone

in the way things undo

⟡

Science of the spirit

everything before

the rough depth

surfaces

submerges

remains

⟡

⟡

Take my dark

assemble it

let it crash 

under the weight of light if it must

⟡ 

I will succumb 

⟡

I will gladly shatter 

myself into the image of all matter

⟡

The images featured in this text are the creations of photographer Danielle Goshay. Experimenting with material and process, Goshay applies fire, smoke, granules, resists, and liquids of various viscosities to photo paper in a darkroom environment. Goshay’s photograms, as a practice of camera-less photography, achieve infinite levels of abstraction that at once mesmerize and confound. The artist’s fascination with alchemy lives through this image-making process, which is as intensely methodical as it is aleatory and spiritual. By writing poetry alongside Goshay’s evolving body of work, I respond to these photograms in their native language—abstraction, imagism, and symbology.

Images: Photograms by Danielle Goshay, 2022-2023. All photos courtesy of the artist.